Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday May 11, 2012 @04:32PM
from the mum's-the-word dept.

Sparrowvsrevolution writes "A DC appeals court has ruled that the National Security Agency doesn't need to either confirm or deny its secret relationship with Google in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and follow-up lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. The NSA cited a FOIA exemption that covers any documents whose exposure might hinder the NSA's national security mission, and responded to EPIC with a 'no comment.' Beyond merely rejecting the FOIA request, the court has agreed with the NSA that it has the right to simply not respond to the request, as even a rejection of the request might reveal details of a suspected relationship with Google that it has sought to keep secret. Google was reported to have partnered with the NSA to bolster its defenses against hackers after its breach by Chinese cyberspies in early 2010. But to the dismay of privacy advocates who fear the NSA's surveillance measures coupled with Google's trove of data, the company has never explained the details of that partnership."

It's been known for a long time that Google has been secretly working with NSA. You may ask why they do it?

1) It is beneficial to NSA.

NSA gets immersive amount of data from Google that they would not otherwise have. Remember that Google logs every and all search requests made, has Google Analytics scripts on basically every site on the internet, owns YouTube (good place to check what videos interest people), and is now trying to compete with Facebook by building the worlds largest social network (with a strict real names only -policy), Google+.

2) It is beneficial to Google.

In turn, Google has strong government backing for all their privacy violations, snooping and ignorance of other countries laws. They have and are building a strong relationship with the highest people on US government so that they get free pass on everything and no liability.

3) Google has got lots of shit lately.

It aligns with the previous point, but Google has been major target of (valid) lawsuits around the world and U.S. lately. FTC is watching them, KFTC is watching them, European Union is watching them. By strongering their position with someone like NSA they are trying to weasel out of these suits.

4) Google is a marketing company

Imagine if you could build yourself as "the marketing company of the internet". You need to gather lots of data for that. By making some favors towards NSA, their upper personal will of course make some back. After all, they are in the same business - snooping people's data. NSA for their purposes, Google for marketing purposes.

Why do you think Google went to NSA after "China was in their systems" (who even believes that? It's just another cyber-security bullshit thing to raise funding), and why NSA denies to respond to the allegations?

If they weren't working with Google, they could just say so. If they were working with Google but lied now, they would be held responsible. So they just respond with "no comment".

Seriously, Alex Jones [wikipedia.org], founder of Infowars and Prison Planet, is known for "Advocacy of national sovereignty; New World Order theories; anti-world government; and various conspiracy theories". And no, I'm not Portuguese.

Re "Citation needed."
In many form of links to read http://epic.org/foia/epic_v_nsa_google.html [epic.org]
"On February 4, 2010, the Washington Post reported that Google had contacted the National Security Agency ("NSA")" ..."stated that the NSA's general counsel had drafted a "cooperative research and development agreement" within 24 hours of Google's announcement of the attack, which authorized the Agency to "examine some of the data related to the intrusion into Google's systems.""

You can't be seriously asking for a public confession of espionage on slashdot, what next you want them to waterboard themselves, maintain stress positions, go without sleep, starve, freeze and play bad music too loud. It's right there in that magenta folder marked top secret just shoot me in the head right now;D.

It's kind of funny that you slur the guy with "Wikitard" (implying that Wikipedia is not an intelligent source of information because, hey, anyone can write something on a web page), when he is asking for corroboration of the GGP's assertion and not taking the word of some random person writing something on a web page.

5) It is beneficial to taxpayersIf the NSA and Google work together, then the taxpayers don't have to pay the NSA to create an entire duplicate search infrastructure. Once could argue that the government shouldn't be spying on us, but hey, as long as they are doing it anyway, they might as well do it as cost effectively as possible.

If I were the NSA I'd buy a lot of Google ads in return for even more help- the ads don't actually have to be shown at all. And do a similar thing with Facebook et all too. To get around the pesky laws I could also get Google to do all the dirty work. "We'

Only in the strictly monetary sense. For about anything else, including NSA's stated purpose of providing security for the nation, it goes against the taxpayers as they are either citizens or legal aliens who live in the country.

Very interesting, so you've taken a post someone wrote about you, Bonch, and then you've changed all the names to make it look like it is pro-google shilling going on while in actuality it is you doing anti-google shilling.

Hey cool, bonch is now claiming I'm a sockpuppet shilling for Google despite having been downmodded in the past for negative Google posts. I've also made positive Apple posts, too. I'm not a very good pro-Google shill, apparently.

As I said on the Wired article, what should Google, a US company, have done when what are likely state or state-backed Chinese hackers thoroughly compromise one of their services?

*Not* turn to "U.S. authorities”? Do nothing? It's certainly bizarre when a US company under attack by another nation-state would be expected to *not* involve our own government.

Guess what: our intelligence activities and capabilities are secret, not because we want to "hide them from the public", but because they necessarily remain secret for the precise reasons the courts ruled the way they did in this case: so that our ADVERSARIES don't understand our sources, methods, capabilities, and responses.

I know most people here believe the NSA is evil, instead of looking across the Pacific to a country that can scarcely wait to displace the US as a global power, while keeping a firm stranglehold on its citizens. I imagine there will be many tired references to the Utah Data Center in the comments section here, too, from people who completely misunderstand the law, and NSA's purpose and missions.

Yes Google should have gone to the US Government, the question is, is the NSA the correct agency? If a system was compromised, shouldn't it be the FBI or Homeland Security and not an agency who's mission is covert (as in spying)?

A company maintaining a huge amount of information on a nation's citizens has its security compromised... perhaps they should go to that nation's security administration, or something like that, for help in preventing a recurrence.

As a US citizen, I'm much more afraid of the NSA (or any US agency) getting access to my Google*(*& Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Dropbox,etc) account data than I am of any arm of the Chinese government getting access.

If you feel that way, you really have been approaching all of those accounts wrong from the outset. You'd have be in a better position now had you assumed they would be compromised before you created them, and used them accordingly.

I don't understand why you'd be so concerned about the NSA having your account details, when all of your information has been most certainly churned through any number of private companies, all trying to actively mine your data for profit. Again, you'd be in a better position no

That's fine but the government also has a bad habit or classifying things that should not be classified..... like when they covered-up the journalist that had been killed by U.S. soldiers. "We have no idea what happened to him" they told the family, rather than admit they screwed up (and also killed some kids).

Your mistake is in tying defense against the Chinese, and spying against Americans. We don't need secrecy. What made this country great was freedom. What will keep us great, and keep us ahead of the Chinese, is freedom, and control of our government. Even at the expense of immediate security. We can't be free, we can't control the government, if we can't see what it's doing. And if we lose that freedom, then we will be utterly destroyed by the population of China... So in my mind, what th

I agree a lot of things government agencies do is misconstrued as evil and world shattering. Your bias that the NSA is here to do no harm to domestic citizenry is foolish. Yes, many foreign nation-states would love to get their fingers further into our infrastructure. So would many NGO's. So what? Does that mean that the NSA doesn't breech it's own citizen's rights on a daily basis? Because you say so?

Don't rely on conjecture and what the "nsa.gov"'s mission statement will lead you to believe. Whistle blowe

Guess what: our intelligence activities and capabilities are secret, not because we want to "hide them from the public", but because they necessarily remain secret for the precise reasons the courts ruled the way they did in this case: so that our ADVERSARIES don't understand our sources, methods, capabilities, and responses.

Doesn't this also effect the safety of the public, if the methods, capabillities and legal obligations of the NSA are unknown? Note that the existence of the partnership, according an article in the post linked to by TFA, is already known, and the technical capabillities provided to the NSA by this relationship can therefore be roughly estimated. It isn't like the NSA hasn't violated the US constitution (taking the overly optimistic view that it is still in effect) and due process before.

I know most people here believe the NSA is evil, instead of looking across the Pacific to a country that can scarcely wait to displace the US as a global power, while keeping a firm stranglehold on its citizens. I imagine there will be many tired references to the Utah Data Center in the comments section here, too, from people who completely misunderstand the law, and NSA's purpose and missions.

Are you certain it is not you who misunderstands the NSA's purpose and missions? How can you, when the government's interpretation of the law is kept secret? Do you really believe the NSA serves the interests of the people of the USA any more than the TSA? Isn't it possible for both the NSA and the Chinese intelligence agencies to be evil and worthy of mistrust?

Your position seems a bit simplistic.I do agree that intelligence personel (I know a few in military intelligence and some who were in federal police agencies' intelligence arms) tend to have better things to worry about than average citizens doing average things.

On the other hand, I've never met an authority figure who couldn't find a use for more power of surveillance if given it. There are also a lot of people in the apparatus who think that those of us not of in the government (or their agency) need wat

It starts to bug me. Why are there two types of investigation?
1) "The hacker could not be traced as probably several servers were used".
2) "The IP was from China/Russia, so the hacker too".
So since it is politically useful to the Americans to point at China, I suggest all hackers to get one of the computer in China. Best is Russia last with all logs at max, then China, then the usual.

you don't use google, or facebook, or other similar things.
The problem is your friend with a job offer or your boss or your family is. Your name, interests, friends are floating around. Add in your cell calls, emails, texts to your cell phone. Contractors buying bulk commercial data, the US gov and govs around the world, your data been looped around the world - its all fair game to the NSA.

When I had a security clearance "neither confirm nor deny" was what we were instructed to say when asked what we did. If the affiliation with Google is classified then that's the right answer here too.

MS seems to have been more a rapid roll out of CPU friendly, rushed beta code to ensure a digital brand and land grab before cashed up start ups got traction.
Security was to come after as the end users got better cpu's, gpu's, bandwidth and only ***if*** US law ever dictated better digital privacy.
The NSA would have loved all that clear text, spyware friendly tech been exported, copied, cloned, installed, pushed around the world.
MS and its rush to build networking gave the USA the gift of a few decades o

We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security. That means, they don't care about your torrent of that cam of some shitty movie you downloaded. Nor do they care how much music you pirate, or even what porn you watch. We have entrusted them with a shroud of secrecy in order to operate under the radar and find bad guys.

Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if the

We all know there is No Such Agency and that they have a mandate to secretly try to catch villains involved in our national security

... or they might have some other mandate. We the People have no way of knowing what they've been ordered to do, nor what they're actually doing (which may or may not coincide with what they've been ordered to do, again we have no way of confirming anything)

Now when they start breaking that trust for bullshit domestic reasons, if they ever do, then we hold their noses to the grindstone.

And how exactly do we find out whether the NSA is breaking that trust, when all definitive about their activities is classified? What the public does have access to are a number of former NSA officials who've stated publicly that the NSA is committing se

I'm not saying it's a perfect world. If you have an axe to grind with them, run it through the system and our representatives. If that doesn't satisfy you, get someone elected in that you trust to take a gander at them via the oversight mechanisms. Poking around with a stick their operations isn't serving anyone. They do have a serious job and we do have a world hell bent on causing us trouble. We have to expect some percentage of shenanigans out of something like this, but it's nothing to go crazy over, it

Well, I imagine it's hard to run a secretive national security agency when any passerby who wants to know the company business can poke his or her head in and ask "what's cooking?" and by law get a response. If you feel like they have gone rogue, why not bust the balls of those who have direct oversight of them instead of trying to pry into day to day operations? Want an in depth investigation of and an accountability for their actions? There is a process for that I am sure. But it's not open for prying pub

It's something I've been saying for at least five years (somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but there you go).

Coming up with a credible plan to coax people to hand them over their data willingly is Just The Right Thing To Do for the NSA. One might even argue that they ain't worth their salt if they didn't. For an added bonus, this scheme is financially self-supporting by a comfortable margin.

So it would have made a hell of a lot of sense for them to "invent" Google.

When one voluntarily participates in activities via the Internet, does he have a right to believe that he may do so anonymously or in any sort of private forum? I think not. The Internet is the world's largest "public forum". I believe the World Wide Web was designed to be just that--- a public forum for the exchange of ideas and information. I don't believe that Google ever made any representations to the contrary. They have always admitted that they maintain records of the searching activities of all w

It used to be that the magic words were "abracadbra" or "presto chango", but now the new magic words are "national security". Those words hypnotize judges into giving the government anything it wants. It seems to even work on corporations: Google, ATT etc.The NSA is the Fight Club. The first rule of the NSA is you don't talk about the NSA

It leaves me wondering exactly what kind of security system we really have. It seems to be some unholy tangle of secret government combined with corporate indifference to